The nation's financial crisis often strikes me as analogous to water spilled across a table littered with mail, bills, stacks of documents and other clutter of daily life. You might quickly clean up the initial mess only to later discover the spreading liquid ruined, say, an important health insurance application. It takes time to realize the full ramifications of the spill.

The New York Times yesterday found a new one for the nation's paralyzing credit crisis: alternative energy projects.

That's not good news for Michigan, which is hanging its increasingly threadbare economic hat on the hopes of capitalizing on the state's considerable natural resources for generating electricity.

Yet as the article noted, government mandates requiring more renewable energy and biofuel production will help assure some demand for wind farms and solar projects. And state lawmakers last month finally approved a renewable portfolio standard for Michigan, despite some criticism of its final form.

I recently wrote that the growth of renewables in European nations indicates that some level of government action may be necessary to help grow a thriving renewable energy economy in the U.S. But that was before the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and the possibility of further bailouts to help homeowners facing foreclosure, as Sen. John McCain has discussed, or to prevent one of the Detroit Three automakers from going bankrupt.

Whoever inherits this mess as the next president will have plenty of potential suitors asking for taxpayer assistance, that much is certain. The danger is that the relief we're all feeling from lower prices at the pump could divert attention away from the broader goals of energy independence, economic diversification and curbing greenhouse emissions.